Toronto Film Review

Friday, March 8, 2019

There was an announcement on February 12ththat Richard Schlagman, the owner of Cahiers du Cinéma, would be selling the prestigious film magazine. Schlagman has had a relatively hands-off role there since purchasing Cahiers in 2008. As aside from helping decide its covers, my impression is that its chief-editor Stéphane Delorme had complete control of guiding the magazine over the last ten years. So the news about the sale leads to some speculation. What’s going to happen Cahiers? Is the current team going to stay? Will some of its earlier writers try to reacquire the magazine? Or will a new generation of younger writers try to take charge? And what legacy of the magazine will remain?

It’s worth looking at Cahiers over the last year to see what image of itself it presents. What news of the world does it provide? What message in the bottle does it have to offer? After 2017’s emphasis on David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return, which amazingly received three covers, the following year seemed like a return to priorities. They published a special issue on exactly this topic: Pourquoi le Cinéma? There they reaffirmed their core beliefs.

The defining developmental experience of cinephilia, for Delorme, is the curiosity of an adolescent whose imagination is sparked by experiencing a temporality and world different than what their accustomed to. He recounts a quite touching anecdote about how he experienced this moment,

The opposition to this emotional and intellectual awakening – of experiencing John Huston’s The Dead as a teenager and being overwhelmed by it – appears later on in the Cahiers dossier on technological totalitarianism (“Dans quel monde entrons-nous?”). The enemy for them becomes a person’s relationship of co-dependence with hyper-mediated digital technologies that are fostered by neoliberal societies. Delorme writes,

Cahiers bring an urgency and vitalness to their critiques. When online social media platforms and streaming services become so common place – whether they be Facebook, Twitter, Netflix – they become habits that reorient behaviours and thoughts. Here the Cahiers team becomes really critical. Especially in regard to how these technologies are designing and changing minds, which create addictions to their operations due to their constant gratification whether they be momentary engagement or ‘likes’. They don’t operate through discovery and imagination, protest or challenge but through habit and routine. There’s a submission and policing through their ambivalent ‘neutral’ interface. Delorme writes,

Jean-Philippe Tessé nicely concludes his contribution, “Contre l’ordre algorithmique, la cinéphilie comme désordre.” It’s a call for adventures and disorder. To disrupt routine and to get folks out of their bubbles. To encounter and experience others – a film, a public, a community – not as a social formation but as part of larger human community. Delorme really hits this home after the suicide of Oxana Shashko – one of the creators of FEMEN – as he writes, “Elle n’a pas laissé de lettre, mais sur Instagram, son dernier post nous brave: “You are fake.” Qu’est-ce qui prouve que nous ne le sommes pas? Que faisons-nous pour ne pas l’être?”

So Cahiers becomes a place to think differently – away from laptops and cellphones – and to think about the world, the larger human community that everyone is a part of, through films. And Cahiers does this really well, I think.

The Cahiers project is unique: it works through the curation of a limited selection of films. For every issue, for every month of the year, these are ‘the films to see’. It’s an affirmation that these are Cahiers films. They showcase them through a pop iconography. For example, last year they had Dolan, Spielberg, Anderson, Varda, Dumont and von Trier on their covers. They create events around these films as they give them the time and space to be thought through over many pages. Their lengthy features become a way for them to assert their priorities. They make particular arguments for the appreciation of the works in relation to a longer Cahiers history. They feature historical personalities that have been important to its past while also supporting the new eccentrics of French cinema (Mandico, Gonzalez, Dupieux).

Cahiers is very international as they try to connect to the world and explore new cinematographic territories. By travelling the world they expand their geography. In 2018 it reached a culmination with their special travelling issue, which focused on real locations and the films that had been set there. How do particular films and filmmakers see the world? Some examples of them include Apichatpong on Thailand, Muratova on Ukraine and Chahine on Egypt.

Their reviews of the Spielberg, Dumont, Godard and interview with von Trier offer interesting examples of particular Cahiers arguments and how through films they have a particular political relationship to the world.

Spielberg’s The Post was really important for Cahiers in 2018 (it would make its top ten list) for its portrait of a press outlet in crisis and what it’s like running a paper. The emphasis is not so much on bearing witness to the times but on acting upon it and changing it. The Post is about the decision-making moment. Delorme’s editorial seems almost like a veiled self-portrait of what it’s like being a chief-editor,

In their review of Coincoin et les Z'inhumains they make a particular argument about Dumont’s representation of refugees – a relevant world concern – that it’s not instrumentalizing or mocking but its positioned as part of a relationship of equality of people shaken up by a world that is in flux. Vincent Malausa and Jean-Philippe Tessé write,

The major event at Cannes 2018 was Godard’s Le livre d’image. In anticipation for it Cahiers featured the ’68 disruption with Godard and Truffaut on cover. The anniversary of France imagining itself a better future becomes for Delorme an opportunity to write about the divide between both the past and the present,

I find the idea of the missing film interesting and I want to posit that Cahiers is like the missing film magazine. There isn’t anything else really like it. It’s an object to think about and to dissent with. It organizes one’s relationship to the world through films. It’s for cinephiles and its political in a way that’s different than what you would usually see on social media or in cultural organizations. It’s home base in Paris accentuates the diversity of the films that it features. And it feels like it is at the forefront of something.

If I needed to pick two word to describe the Delorme editorship of 2018 it would be glorious and angry. The two terms work together. Cahiers is a beautiful object with admiring reviews, but its authority only comes across through the intelligence of its writing and its critiques. That’s where it gets its substance. And their critiques have a way to infiltrate the things that it admires. It’s a reminder of the old adage: that you can only love if you can really hate.

All of these things kind-of sum up what I think about Cahiers today. And I like them. I don’t want it to change. So I’m concerned about its future sale.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Included in Jean-Luc Godard’s palimpsest Le livre d’image are photographs of Jacques Rivette and the title of one of his ultimate interviews “Le secret et la loi”. Though it’s an elusive allusion, it’s an important instance of Godard acknowledging the passing of his friend in 2016 in his own work (aside from a brief note to the Cinémathèque). It’s a tender gesture – one of sorrow and pride – as it’s a sign of lack due to regret and the missing of a friend and an act of solidarity to what they experienced together and their long history.

Speaking to Alain Bergala, Godard remembered highly the esteem he held for Rivette:

This form of memorialization is part of a longer tradition for Godard of eulogizing his nouvelle vague peers who he had been friends with in the fifties: both in an enigmatic fashion, he would express his conflicting feelings towards François Truffaut in a special Cahiers issue “Le roman de François Truffaut” and he would make a short video-essay for Éric Rohmer. Now Rivette has been assumed.

The idea of the complot – conspiracy – is strongly present in Rivette’s film and his mysterious aura. There’s the Balzacian secret society in Out 1 (1971). There’s the elusiveness to Céline et Julie Vont en Bateau (1974) and Le Pont du Nord (1981), which don’t follow standard dramatic arches and conclusive resolutions. Rivette does something different and his private persona and his reticence for interviews and reluctance to re-publish his writing has only heightened his mystery. All of this recalls how Bulle Ogier, who had worked with Rivette on numerous films, speaks of him in the documentary Le veilleur,

“It’s hard to talk about Jacques Rivette because he’s so secret that if you say something about him or about his films or the way he works or lives, you feel terribly indiscreet, impolite… It would be in bad taste. A betrayal almost.”

Because he was so private, the publishing after his death of an anthology of his writing (and the same thing could be said about the opening up of the Chris Marker archives) seems somewhat indiscreet as it provides such an easy access point to his film criticism that he wished to remain obscure, even though there are some privileges of having them all in one place.

The French publisher post-éditions, under the editorship of Miguel Armas and Luc Chessel, has recently published Jacques Rivette: Textes Critiques where you can find for the first time in one book ‘all’ of Rivette’s published film writing from his first essays in Bulletin du ciné-club du Quartier latin and Gazette du cinéma to the majority of it from Cahiers du Cinéma and Arts. There are long reviews to short capsules, top ten lists to unpublished writing; a long group essay “Montage” with Jean Narboni and Sylvie Pierre (1969) and “Le Secret et la Loi” by Hélène Frappat (1999). In terms of what it doesn’t have, you can’t find many of his interviews or the plethora of material that still makes his archive at the Cinémathèque française such a treasure trove (though even this, I suspect, is still lacking material).

What can be gleaned now from being able to go over the entirety of Rivette’s writing all in one place? First off: the pleasure of being around such a legendary cinephile, film critic and filmmaker. It needs to be said: Serge Daney was right about Rivette and Rivette was right about the films that he wrote about. For anyone who grew up with the Cahiers politique des auteurs and watched the films of Hitchcock and Hawks through their eyes there’s a real pleasure of re-reading and discovering some of Rivette’s original arguments and hyperbole.

But beneath these claims Rivette is situating himself within a larger context of French film theory and criticism. There are reoccurring concepts that are interspersed throughout his writing such as realism, mise-en-scène, genius, liberty and modernity. There’s an evolution to his thought from participating in debates around cinégénie along the lines of Louis Delluc and Jean Epstein; to debates around realism along the lines of André Bazin and Maurice Schérer (Rohmer); and finally, to debates around structuralism along the lines of Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss. All of the while implementing his own point of view. Rivette’s writing has the pointedness and authority of defining the films and filmmakers of his era. His film analyses are able to explain how these directors gives expression to an idea through their representation of the world. He would write on some of the most important filmmakers, dictating the Cahiers line as it was being conceived. I would highly suggest reading his pieces on Monsieur Verdoux, Under Capricorn and Les quatre cents coups.

Rivette’s first essay “Nous ne sommes plus innocents” (1950) is interesting for laying down many of his key theories that he would remain loyal to over time. In particular how through its focus on humans and their gestures there can be an existential position on the world that comes across. This is the réel and présence of a film, the focus on bodies and gestures, as opposed to conventional storytelling which is seen as superficial and formulaic. Rivettte described realism as:

Though abstract, these excerpt from Rivette’s earliest texts read like a manifesto of what he would champion the most and bring to his own filmmaking practice: intimate behaviours of individuals, capturing the way of life of beings, an improvisational spirit, refusing preconceptions and the necessity of the instant in all of its spontaneity.

There’s an attempt in “Le Secret et la Loi” for Rivette to directly explain some of his ideas and what they mean for him. He presents his theory of film rather succinctly: narrative films circulate around laws and secrets. For Rivette la loi is,

These points offer a way to re-read the anthology and Rivette’s body of work. He’s speaking about the symbolic and the super-ego to use Lacan’s terms. What social factors motivate behaviour in contrast to a subject’s most intimate and hidden desires. For the modern filmmakers that Rivette wrote about they were able to accomplish this. But what’s so great is that Rivette’s theory doesn’t leave you with anything tangible. This emphasis on the relation between both terms relies on the imposition of a point of view while simultaneously eluding mastery. It only leaves more questions unanswered, creates more thought and allows more mysteries to propagate. There are still new inquiries to be had.

Monday, January 28, 2019

The idea behind the “Toronto on Film!” series is to share important and undervalued films that have been made in this country. It’s meant to be a cinémathèque for older films that aren’t necessarily recognized as classics but that are important historically, aesthetically and socially as a way to explore the richness and diversity of Canadian cinema and more specifically Toronto films. Instead of attempting any form of totalizing gesture to explain what Canadian cinema is (as per the tradition in many ‘official’ world cinema anthologies), this series begins with the specific: not only is its goal to introduce, show and discuss a ‘Toronto film’ but its project is quasi-archeological as the films that will be emphasized will ideally be outside of the public-domain, forgotten about and unearthed from the archives. By being specific, through starting the conversation around particular films and their directors, the aim of this series is to go against preconceived notions of Canadian cinema and to show its heterogeneity. Canadian film scholarship should be more than just the re-writing of twice-told clichés but instead it should be about bringing something out of the past to illuminate the present. It should involve showing the work and sharing it with others. It has to mean something for more than just one person.

The cinémathèque quality of the “Toronto on Film!” series comes from how it will program older work. As interesting as some new short- and feature-length films can be, there is a sense, in Toronto specifically and I reckon nation-wide too, that knowledge of Canadian film history is lacking and, if you’ve even gotten around to take a Canadian film course, too predicated on certain ‘mainstream’ titles. The idea that Canadian film history should be restricted to feature-length narrative films is also limiting. So instead “Toronto on Film!” will open itself towards alternative media objects: the short film, NFB documentaries and television.

This is in response to a general apathy I see towards the topic of Canadian film history. It’s always sad to hear that folks don’t watch any Canadian films. It’s always sad to hear emerging Canadian filmmakers looking up to someone like Denis Villeneuve for inspiration or looking up to Netflix as a place for where they can make ‘universal’ content. This is how regional specificity gets loss and it erases such a rich and exciting film history to draw inspiration from.

For example, last season we showed Glenn Gould’s Toronto (1979) with its filmmaker John McGreevy in attendance. In his best-known City Series, he would get famous guides to provide tours of the world’s urban metropolises: Elie Wiesel in Jerusalem, John Huston in Dublin and, in the work that we showed, Glenn Gould in Toronto. What makes the later so special is that Gould, who is known for his genius piano skills and reclusive temperament, opens himself up, with the help of McGreevy, to the simple pleasures and quotidian life of the city that he has always called home, while also expressing doubt and reticence towards its urban expansion. More people should be discussing McGreevy. His extensive filmography is well worth taking the time to explore. The archive for McGreevy Productions is available at Media Commons at the Robarts Library on the University of Toronto campus.

The 2019 Winter Season of “Toronto on Film!” should be equally exciting as we’ll be focusing on the pioneering filmmakers Martin Defalco, Jennifer Hodge de Silva and Peter Lynch.

Indigenous filmmaking in Canada is now more important and vital than ever. So I want to look back at one of the ground-breaking indigenous feature-length films: Martin Defalco’s 1975 NFB-produced narrative film, Cold Journey. It’s a film about the negative effects of colonialism and the violence of cultural erasure that took place through the federal residential school initiatives, which forced the separation of indigenous children from their parents and then punished them for holding on to their values and not assimilating. Martin Defalco has a unique approach that is noteworthy: he casted non-professional indigenous actors in the lead roles and remained steadfast to the necessity of bleakness to end the story. These traits would be held against the film at its initial release, along with a lack of a theatrical infrastructure, that led to it not reaching an audience. That Cold Journey was made back when it did is incredible. Defalco needs to be recognized as one of the master indigenous filmmakers alongside Gil Cardinal, Alanis Obomsawin and Zacharias Kunuk; and Cold Journey needs to be recognized as one of the masterpieces of Canadian cinema up there with Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964), La vie heureuse de Léopold Z (1965), Crime Wave (1985) and Loyalties (1987).

Defalco’s work in general deserves a critical reappraisal for how it treated indigenous cultures and interests within the constraints of National Film Board projects. There are the more explicit works like The Other Side of the Ledger: An Indian View of the Hudson's Bay Company (1972) that was co-directed with Willie Dunn, which deals explicitly with how social welfare and trading shops exploited indigenous communities; and Trawler Fisherman (1966) about the negative effects of industry expansion in the Northern Saskatchewan countryside that spoiled the water with high mercury levels and prevented and reoriented traditional fishing lifestyles. Defalco’s work presents indigenous communities with a great deal of care and dignity along with a rage and resourcefulness in regard to their maltreatment. You can also see how this permeates through environmental themes that keep resurfacing in his other work like Northen Fisherman (1966) and Class Project: The Garbage Movie (1980).

The availability of these works on the NFB’s website is part of a larger project to promote indigenous cinema, which has only been growing in the last few years. They currently have five of Defalco’s films online, even though there is still a lot more of it to make public. I also want to highlight Donald Brittain’s Starblanket (1973), on the young indigenous chief Noel Starblanket, which is part of this larger project. Starblanket is particularly relevant in regard to the film Cold Journey as he was the one who suggested to Defalco to make the film and he would have a small role in it. Defalco’s work shows such a great respect for the documentary and its form while also having a faith in its advocacy potential to create real social change. For these reasons alone, it makes Defalco one of the best filmmakers to have worked at the NFB.

The “Toronto on Film!” screening at 2:30PM on Sunday, February 10th should not be missed. It will spotlight the pioneer African-Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Hodge de Silva. Her most famous work is Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community (1983) that was co-directed with Roger McTair, which looks at the Jane and Finch community in Northern Toronto by focusing on the folks, most notably its Caribbean population, that are effected by structural injustices and police discrimination. Go watch this on the NFB’s website right now if you haven’t seen it yet. Cameron Bailey, who wrote the definitive essay on her writes, “Whether or not future histories of black filmmaking in Canada begin with Jennifer Hodge de Silva, they will have to acknowledge her importance.” It’s an injustice that not more of Hodge de Silva’s work is available. Luckily I found two works related to her at the Ryerson University Library: Toronto's Ethnic Police Squad (1979) and a documentary about her Jennifer Hodge: The Pain and The Glory (1992) by Roger McTair and Claire Prieto (both of whom are impressive filmmakers and authors in their own right). I’ll do my best to try to get a speaker to come.

While for the March event we’ll look at two of Peter Lynch’s film: the Toronto-centric short-film Arrowhead (1994), which stars Don McKellar, and also his newest film, Birdland (2018). This screening is organized by fellow film studies graduate student Meghan McDonald. The director will there in attendance for this screening to give an introduction and participate in a post-screening discussion. It will be at 2:30PM on Sunday, March 3rd at the Theater in Media Commons at Robarts Library.

If you haven’t heard of or seen any of these titles I wholeheartedly recommend you check out at least one of the screenings. It’s what a Canadian open fault should look like.

-
Les Salopes or the Naturally Wanton Pleasures of the Skin
(Renée Beaulieu)

-
Let the Sunshine in (Claire Denis)

-
Fainting Spells (Sky Hopinka)

-
Lover for a Day (Philippe Garrel)

-
Heartbound (Janus Metz Pederson, Sine Plambech)

-
Vox Lux (Brady Corbet)

-
King’s Dead (Dave Free and Jack Begert)

-
A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper)

***

Ethan
Vestby

1.
The 15:17 to Paris (Clint Eastwood)

2.
The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier)

3.
Transit (Christian Petzold)

4.
Milla (Valérie Massadian)

5.
Den of Thieves (Christian Gudegast)

6.
Lover For a Day (Philippe Garrel)

7.
A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper)

8.
The Mule (Clint Eastwood)

9.
Before We Vanish (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

10.
The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles)

***

Alan
Jones

- The
Mule (Clint Eastwood)

- The 15:17 to Paris
(Clint Eastwood)

- Den of Thieves (Christian
Gudegast)

- First Reformed (Paul
Schrader)

- Sorry to Bother You
(Boots Riley)

- Annihilation (Alex
Garland)

- Mile
22 (Peter Berg)

- The House That Jack
Built (Lars von Trier)

- The Other Side Of
The Wind (Orson Welles)

- Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)

***

Will
Sloan

1.
The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles) / Personal Problems (Bill Gunn)

2.
First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

3.
The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)

4.
Bodied (Joseph Kahn)

5.
Burning (Lee Chang-dong)

6.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie)

7.
The 15:17 to Paris / The Mule (Clint Eastwood)

8.
Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

9.
Let the Sunshine in (Clair Denis)

10.
Wobble Palace (Eugene Kotlyarenko)

***

Ryan
Krahn

1.
Our Time by Carlos Reygadas (Mexico): The second part of an ostensibly autobiographical pairing with Post Tenebras Lux, Reygadas’ poetic
exploration of trust, desire, and time is an allegorical tapestry and his most
challenging—even daring—film to date.

2.
In My Room by Ulrich Köhler (Germany): I’ve sometimes heard the creation stories of krautrock or the first
wave of Detroit techno explained as a unifying myth of only
tangentially-related figures. Likewise, I’ve wondered if the disparate but
institutionally-related circle of dffb filmmakers collected under the name
Berliner Schule was as much a school as it was a creation of film critics.
Either way, its individual members (like Petzold, Grisebach, and Köhler’s
partner Ade) have been collectively delivering some of their best work in
recent years and this genre-hopping, apocalyptical adventure film continues the
trend. The DVD-choosing/watching scene filled my heart.

3.
Burning by Lee Chang-dong (South Korea): Dressed up as a moody mystery thriller, Burning is a film about the political tension between two South
Koreas: one populist, traditional, angry; the other, American, ostentatious,
capitalist. It beautifully articulates the uneasiness of our historical
period—a time of two dead ends— and highlights the disappearance of any third
option. Far and away the best Oscar nominee.

4.
ALTIPLANO by Melena Szlam (Chile): The most outstanding short I saw from TIFF’s Wavelengths series was
this beautiful experiment with texture and time set to shifting landscapes of
the widest part of the Andes in Chile and Argentina.

5.
Angelo by Markus Schleinzer (Austria): Every bit as unsettling and challenging a topic as as his first film, Michael, Schleinzer’s Angelo interprets
the story of Angelo Soliman (a man bought as a slave and raised as an 18th
Century Austrian nobleman) and presents a very contemporary lesson on the
different ways colonial power operates to dominate, exoticize, and re-represent
its perceived “other.”

6.
Donbass by Sergey Loznitsa (Ukraine): With 3 films in 2018, Loznitsa had a prodigious year. I haven’t seen Victory Day, but The Trial and Donbass
work together to highlight the complicated stories coming out of Russia and the
Ukraine today. The Trial is a documentary repurposing of footage from Stalin’s
show trials and Donbass is an acidic
tour through the War in Donbass, every moment burnt into your memory and
possibly false.

7.
An Elephant Sitting Still by Hu Bo (China): I was lucky enough to catch Bela Tarr introduce this film at the
TIFF screening I attended. Tarr tearfully euologized the death of his former
student, Hu Bo, who killed himself before finishing his first feature film. The
preface almost served as a caution to anyone unprepared to sit through a
powerful, contemplative love poem to suicide. For the same reason, I can not
blindly recommend this film: feel well before you see this. Had the haunting
post-rock soundtrack by Hualun been released, it would have probably made my
music list of this year.

8.
Suspiria by Luca Guadagnino (Italy): Luadagnino creatively reimagines Argento’s masterpiece by boldly
shifting its tone. It’s a move reminiscent of what De Palma’s Blow Out does to Antonioni’s Blow Up and a move sure to disappoint
those who were comfortable with an unmoving picture of the original classic or
of Guadagnino’s filmography.

9.
A Faithful Man by Louis Garrel (France): This light-hearted story on the reflexivity of lust offers a comic
twist on the usual love triangles Garrell tends to act in, whether it be in his
father’s work or others. If Our Time
is the red wine, this would pair nicely as the white.

10.
Shoplifters by Hirokazu Kore-eda (Japan): The way this film was marketed caused me to half expect a certain film
festival brand of Hallmark humanism. So, I was pleasantly surprised with what
turned out to be a quiet, touching, but never cloying film that was elevated by
understated performances by the two child actors and an unfussy Haruomi Hosono
score.

Haven't gotten around to yet:Capernaum, The Wild Pear Tree, Madeline’s
Madeline, Hale County This Morning This Evening, A Prayer Before Dawn, The
World Is Yours, Private Life, The Kindergarten Teacher.

***Nate Wilson1. First Reformed (Paul Schrader) 2. Unsane / Mosaic (Steven Soderbergh) 3. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins) 4. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Koreeda) 5. A Bread Factory, Part One and Two (Patrick Wang) 6. Atlanta: Robbin’ Season (Donald Glover, Hiro Murai, Amy Seimetz) 7. Vox Lux (Brady Corbet) 8. The Other Side Of Wind (Orson Welles) 9. Bodied (Joseph Khan) 10. Mangoshake (Terry Chiu) 11. Burning (Lee Chang-dong): But I was really tired and falling asleep through the second half, but still; fuck... that moment where he’s boning and he notices the sun across the wall… shit, like, fuck man… also Support The Girls was real good… and You Were Never Really Here, except that ending started rubbing me the wrong way after I saw it a second time… A Star Is Born peaked in the first hour, but still, wow, whatever lady gaga’s real name is. Fatal Pulse aka Night Pulse aka Untitled Yuppie Fear Thriller is the most destructive movie of the year. And Sorry To Bother You is wild, it’s that go-for-broke unkiltered silly first film that first time filmmakers don’t really get to make anymore. OK. Madeline’s Madeline, that was a cool movie, I saw it with my Mom. Wish I saw Den Of Thieves.

***

Jordan
Sowunmi

1.
A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper)

2.
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)

3.
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham)

4.
Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)

5.
The Kindergarten Teacher (Sara Colangelo)

6.
Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle)

7.
Sorry To Bother You (Boots Riley)

8.
Widows (Steve McQueen)

9.
Bodied (Joseph Kahn)

10.
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)

***

James
Rathbone

Burning
(Lee Chang-dong): Amazing performances,
photography, plotting, saw it twice at the Lightbox and it was a very rewarding
each time.

First
Reformed (Paul Schrader): Scathing,
black hearted, yet redemptive. Schrader back on his shit! Been thinking about
climate change more since.

Good
Boy (Fantavious Fritz): This
short was my favourite moment of TIFF that asks the relevant question: Do all
dogs really go to heaven?

Hereditary
(Ari Aster): An incredibly competent
debut and best horror film of the last few years. Toni Colette emphasizing the
point that you can’t have great horror without great performances.

Failure
To Appear (Antoine Bourges): A
slice of life that falls between the lines.

You
Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay): The year of art house directors making thrillers, and Lynne Ramseys’
entry goes all the way in its indictment of the current state of western
politics. Look up “Jeffrey Epstein” if the premise seems implausible.

Laissez
bronzer les cadavres (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani): In a just world this tripped out flick would
be in every cineplex blowing the minds of bad teen boys and girls across small
town North America.

A
Prayer Before Dawn (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire): This movie doesn’t have international
distribution in Canada, and maybe coming to Canada in 2019, but it’s a trip. A
vivid nightmare of the hardest of knocks.

Widows (Steve
McQueen): Some great performances and
nice to see Stevey back in the saddle with a big budget. That said, I haven’t
seen Shoplifters yet and I’m 90%
sure that will take Widows place.

1.Free Solo (Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai
Vasarhelyi): Loved this film. Absolutely
riveting. My palms were sweaty just sitting in the theatre - even though I was
tangentially semi-aware of what happens in the film, halfway thru I was not at
all certain I could rely on my memory and I was sweating like a madman watching
the events unfold. More surprising - I was sweating just as much watching the
film for the second time. It is visually breathtaking, emotionally grounded,
and downright hilarious at times. This is the kind of film that needs to be
seen in theatres for your first viewing.

2.
Un traductor (Rodrigo Barriuso, Sebastián Barriuso): I’m totally biased here, I’ll be honest.
Rodrigo is a friend of mine. It’s about Ukrainian children battling
post-Chernobyl radiation exposure. Another reason for my personal bias in favour
of the films. And it’s shot in Cuba (ok, that aspect doesn’t bias me in either
direction). It’s a highly personal story for Rodrigo and Sebastián. The ending
is insanely moving. I’m sold on this film! It’s upsetting to me that this isn’t
a Canadian film (technically) and that the Canadian film establishment is
reluctant to embrace it (looking squarely at TIFF and Telefilm when I say
this). This film is worth seeing on the sheer basis of - “look at what our
fellow Canadian filmmakers are capable of producing!” It’s being embraced by
the Spanish-speaking world even though nearly everyone involved in making this
films lives in Toronto.

3.
Green Book (Peter Farrelly):Love
this movie. Mortensen and Ali are outstanding, individually and together.

4.
First Man (Damien Chazelle): Everything
I wanted it to be and then some.

5.
The Load (Ognjen Glavinić): I
can’t believe any Serbian money went into this film. It’s awesome. Takes time
introducing the characters and revealing the story. Doesn’t pander to anyone.
Been thinking back about this movie a lot after seeing it for the first time.

6.
Everybody Knows (Asghar Farhadi): Masterfully crafted, gorgeously shot, and acted to perfection. The
movie pays off on the first watch, and deserves a rewatch to catch every clue
that one might miss on the first try.

7.
Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson): An
absolute delight, in every way.

8.
They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (Morgan Neville): A very well made film. A bit surreal at times. Loved the BTS of Orson
directing. Loved the ending. I suppose the only thing it was lacking for me is
strong emotional attachment to any person involved in the story - not even
Orson. I give credit to the film for being unapologetic about portraying Orson
as a human being with good sides and deep flaws, rather than a “god of cinema”
who shall not be criticized. The fact this exists at all is mind-boggling. HOW
did they get a hold of any of that footage?! It’s somehow heart-warming to see
that Orson Welles was simultaneously focused and completely scatterbrained with
his ideas. The film went darker than I expected and some moments are utter and
complete surreal WTF-ery. Generally wasn’t super into the “presenter telling us
the story in a staged studio” cutaways.

9. Reserved for one of the films I haven’t yet seen.10. Reserved for one of the films I haven’t yet seen.

Best thing I saw in 2018 that wasn’t a 2018 movie:The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci):
Hilarious. 10/10, would death again.

Best guilty pleasure:Battlefish: A show that’s got
both extremes - clever people doing clever things and truly un-clever people
doing amusingly un-clever things.

Films that I presume could have made my top ten list, but
ones I haven’t gotten around to seeing yet:Eighth Grade, Hearts Beat Loud, Three Identical Strangers, Vice, The
Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Sorry to Bother You, Spider-Man: Into the
Spider-Verse, Cold War, A Quiet
Place, Anthropocene, BlacKkKlansman, Roma,
Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot, Climax.

Old masters:Personal
Problems, Other Side of the Wind, and Eight
Hours Don’t Make a Day

***

Adam
Nayman

On
the whole, it’s probably healthier that I saw fewer new movies in 2018 than any
other year since I started working as a critic way back in 2001; a combination
of a new beat (writing primarily for a mainstream-oriented American website)
and being beat (finishing a book, teaching multiple courses at different
institutions, having a toddler) meant that I fell behind early and got lapped
entirely around the time of TIFF, when failing to catch key titles by old
favourites and hyped newcomers alike. On top of it all, a number of the films I
did see out of a combination of personal interest and professional obligation
were, either relative to expectation or on their own terms, profoundly
disappointing: Maya, Non-Fiction,
Peterloo, Roma, Vice, Hold the Dark, American Dharma, and others.

Of
course, I did see movies that I liked and even loved, but looking over the
lists I submitted to different publications, I was mostly just frustrated at
how closely my pick hewed to consensus -- not because I distrust my own taste
(or that of my colleagues) but because I don’t think I gave myself the chance
to stray too far. That’s why, in lieu of a top 10, I’ve submitted a list of
fifteen movies I regretted missing in 2018, each of which I hope to see before
2019 is over.

1.
Eighth Grade by Bo Burnham: I will
never ever recover from seeing this movie.

2.
Mid90s by Jonah Hill: Currently
studying every shot, edit, performance choice and song cue like it’s the Torah
and I’m getting ready for my Bat Mitzvah.

3.
A Star is Born by Bradley Cooper: The
Cameron Crowe-st movie of 2018 and thank god for that; I love chemistry and I
love STAR POWER and I love MUSIC MAN; all I do is sing “Shallow” in the shower
and wait for Bradley Cooper to tenderly touch my nose.

4.
Shirkers by Sandi Tan: A
tragic, desperately sad and powerful story that is unfortunately the story of
many female filmmakers; what a truly beautiful documentary.

5.
Hereditary by Ari Aster: After I
watched this movie at the CineStarz in Côte-De-Neiges, I went to bed with the
lights on pretty convinced that Toni Collette was going to murder me? Ari Aster
may have ruined Muriel’s Wedding for me but it was worth it. A horror film that
understands that the scariest thing of all is inherited generational trauma.

6.
Support the Girls by Andrew Bujalski: I love, love, love, LOVE this movie and
everything Andrew Bujalski has ever done!!!

7.
Game Night: Seriously man! Don’t
sleep on Game Night or you will miss
the greatest performance of the year by Jesse Plemons.

8.
Roma by Alfonso Cuarón: I
watched this at TIFF 18 and remembered that cinema is about images.

9.
Gloria Bell by Sebastian Leilo:
Romantic, funny, and sad.

10.
First Reformed by Paul Schrader: You
have to love this movie or you don’t love cinema at all.

11.
Maison Du Bonheur by Sofia Bohdanowicz: Truly inspired by everything that Sofia
makes and the great impressive power she has telling compassionate stories
about the ways in which women make their way in the world.

2. Childish
Gambino’s music video for This is
America:2018 was such a bad year for
music videos AND YET Hiro Murai continues to astound and amaze.

3.
Insecure Season 3: The
best episode this season was “Fresh-like,” directed by Stella Meghie, featuring
a glorious Rohmer-esque walk and talk. I liked that the main plot of the season
involved being ghosted. This show is so relatable and well-written and really
takes its time.

4.
Succession on HBO: I am
absolutely FLOORED by this show and the bananas performances and writing. Like Arrested Development and King Lear had an absolutely demented baby.

5.
Big Mouth Season 2: Is
it weird that I cried like 12 times watching a cartoon about pre-teens and
their penises? David Thwelis’ Shame
Monster was a brilliant addition.

6. The
“Free Churro” episode of BoJack Horseman:
New heights of animation include a
30-minute monologue at someone else’s funeral!

7. Mariamo Diallo’s Hair
Wolf: Everyone needs to watch this
incredibly stylish and intelligent short film that won the Midnight Madness
prize at Sundance.

8.
Charlie Tyrell’s My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes: A heartbreaking short documentary currently
shortlisted for an Academy Award that simply articulates the pain of losing a
loved one through all the weird shit they leave behind.

9.
Docking by Trevor Anderson: Must
be seen to be believed.

10. Santiago
Menghini’s Milk: A sublime and very scary short film that
echoes Under The Skin.

11.
Wild Wild Country:All
I thought about this summer was how much easier my life would be if I could
wear burgundy and worship Osho. This is a phenomenal series about all the
demented ways people find meaning in their lives, and the cinematic details,
mostly involving salad bars, are burned into my brain forever. It also features
my new favourite Facebook friend, Philip Toelkes!

12. Judd
Apatow’s The Zen Diaries of Garry
Shandling: Judd Apatow’s
four-and-a-half hour documentary is a true tribute to his late friend and
mentor, as well as a beautiful primer on how to be an artist and a human being.

P.S. The best concert I saw was John Maus live at Lee’s
Palace where he took all our collective pain inside him like some sort of
Giver, the best novels I read was Elif Batuman’s The Idiot and Catherine
Fatima’s Sludge Utopia, and the best thing I ate was a snail gratin with
heirloom tomatoes at Joe Beef! Au revoir to 2018, a very wonderful year for
cinema and friendship.

1.
Welcome to Marwen (Robert Zemeckis): Do you ever get that feeling when you just have to stand against
creation-by-committee cinema, and stan (no "d") for those who go
against that mentality? Then welcome to the genuinely subversive and masterful
Marwen, motherfuckers.

Honourable Mentions: Any time Tessa
Thompson was on screen in anything, any time Brian Tyree Henry was on screen in
anything, Emily Blunt in Mary Poppins
Returns, Becks, Blockers, Glow Season
2, Maniac, The first half of A Star Is Born and the first half of Vox Lux, Tully, Roma, Amandla Stenberg
and Russell Hornsby in The Hate U Give,
Olivia Colman in The Favourite, Dina
Shihabi in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan,
Danielle Brooks in Orange is the New
Black Season 6, Maddie Baillio in Dumplin',
any time Julia Garner was on screen in anything.

- Black
Panther (Ryan Coogler): Black Panther provides a fresh spin on Marvel's often formulaic narrative formula.
The film has a very rich and compelling story complimented with superior
visuals and a standout cast, most notably Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong'o.

- Won't
You Be My Neighbor? (Morgan Neville): Fantastic. A poignant, and enlightening story of the brilliant
father-figure and underestimated, Fred Rogers and beyond. The film blends
emotion and information perfectly while reminding you, above all else, to BE
KIND.

- A Quiet Place
(John Krasinki): Tense and very natural
at enacting the element of surprise. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt give
fantastic performances. John’s deft Direction and strong script define him,
clearly, as a rising Director.

- Incredibles
2 (Brad Bird): Outstanding
animation, effective storytelling with the reminder and introduction of
old/new, makes The Incredibles 2
satisfy expectations, but also gives the sequel a reason to exist.

- Eighth Grade
(Bo Burnham): This film brings a sigh of
relief, as it may remind you that you weren't all that weird in 8th grade. Take
a breath, you were so cool. Un-formulaic, unexpected events keep this film
moving forward. If you've been through 8th grade, you need to see Eighth Grade.

- Ben
Is Back (Peter Hedges): Ben
Is Back's direct storytelling and exceptional performances from Julia Roberts
and Lucas Hedges make this film a huge win.

- If Beale Street
Could Talk (Barry Jenkins): Gorgeous
visuals and deft direction make this film a pure win for Jenkins, whom doesn’t
show any signs of slowing down.

- Shoplifters
(Hirokazu Kore-eda): Be patient. Shoplifters delivers this rare humanism
that we don't see often, providing an ultimately satisfying, engaging and
emotional journey for a family we become deeply rooted in. What a treat.

- Searching
(Aneesh Chaganty): An original and timely
premise matched with full-bodied characters make Searching a huge win. It's
consistently engaging, throwing twists and turns at you from every corner. A
nerve-wracking suspense thriller.